Chapter 12

Camila Noceda, the one time mother of Luz Noceda, blinked slowly.

And what she said next shocked everyone.

“Why are you in She-Ra cosplay?”

Adora Grayskull, of the House Grayskull from the Boiling Isles, who had been raised as a human being for most of her life, opened her mouth and said: “Uhhhhhhhhhhh-”

ONE ETERNITY AGO

ONE DIMENSION TO THE LEFT

Luz Noceda screamed as she tumbled backwards and fell through the crackling wall between universes. Her Titan-gifted body fell away from her with a crumbling sensation as she felt her connection to that vast, timeless power grow drawn, taut, then snap. Her hands flailed wildly and she grabbed onto the edge of the portal, craning her head up and over it, even as her arms screamed at her with the pressure pulling her up. Up. Up.

Through it, she could see the melting Belos, the strange object that he had held, inverted by the force pulling her upwards.

He looked triumphant.

“You pu-”

Luz’s fingers lost traction and she fell upwards into the World-Between-Worlds, screaming out Spanish that her mother had most definitely not taught her.

When she had last been in this place, she had been sinking downwards. Because the last time she had been here, Luz was fairly sure she had been dying. No, not even that. She had been dead. And she had fallen down, into the vast bubbling blackness that sat at the bottom of the World-Between-Worlds. She could remember the chilling coldness sweeping through her soul as the light had faded, bit by bit ... she had only been saved at the last moment by the Titan himself, pulled up and away from the infinite oblivion that had waited for her.

This time, she fell upwards, traveling in the same direction as the motes that flitted through this world towards their unknowable destination.

Well.

Luz learned what the destination was as she screamed upwards.

She was falling towards a ceiling of glowing white light. It was as vast as the dark ocean below, and it blazed with a shimmering heat. She fell into it, tumbling – and felt her body crackling and buzzing as energies swept along her. She yelped and flailed her arms, then snatched onto something with the tips of her fingers. She looked around wildly, and for a moment, Luz saw something that her cool aunt, Lilith Clawthorne, would have given her eye-teeth and her bile-sack to see.

She saw the bubbling furnace of raw energy that pulsed at the heart of all things.

She saw the vast waves of coruscating energies, buzzing outwards and sweeping through a hazy connection of shimmering lines – like spiderwebs made of raw lightning.

And she saw the way everything connected together, all at once.

And the only reason she was still around to remember seeing this and was not boiled apart into a haze of quarks and potentiality was because her hands had caught on the edge of the space between the World-Between-Worlds and this vast furnace of reality. Luz clenched her teeth – and thought of Amity, and Stringbean, and Hunter, and Willow, and Guz, and her mom, and King and Eda, and every last weirdo on the Boiling Isles, and magic, and learning about runes, and kissing Amity. With this raw, burning heat in her arms, she pulled herself up, inch by inch, back into the World-Between-Worlds.

She hauled herself against the tugging gravity of the past, her lips skinning back as she reached up, grabbed, pulled. Grabbed. Pulled. Her fingers dug into the crumbly wall-stuff of the world, and her shoes scrabbled at the wall, while tears of effort was pulled past her eyes. Then her hand reached up and found, blessedly, an actual ledge. Something she could haul herself into. She pulled herself up with another manic burst of raw energy – and saw that she was looking in through a portal.

Luz did not even look inside the portal. She simply knew that if she stayed in the World-Between-Worlds, then she’d be yanked upwards into the Furnace again, and she would...

She wasn’t sure what would happen.

But she wouldn’t enjoy it.

She shoved herself forward, tumbled, then sprawled onto her back, gasping and panting.

Behind her, the portal she had tumbled through snapped shut.

Luz was alone on a metal floor, lit by a dull reddish light. The air smelled of ozone and acrid stinks. A distant voice crackled on the PA, and a tired, bored sounding person said: “Kyle, report to section-2 for mandatory labor. Repeat, Kyle, report to section-2 for mandatory labor.”

“Sucks to be Kyle,” Luz whispered, sitting up slowly, her arms trembling.

Okay, she thought. What was that?

Well, down was death. Up was ... life? Strange images popped into her head – an after effect of seeing the cosmic potentiality she had been dangling into. Luz rubbed her temples, her eyes closing. “I think I saw the beginning of the universe. All universes.” She laid back onto the ground again. “ ... that thing ... Belos sent me into the past with it? Why?”

She gasped, sitting up.

“Oh no! I’ve been Hecate’d in book seven!”

Luz’s reflection on the possibility that she had been deleted from time was interrupted by a pair of voices.

“I told you, the energy signature came from down here.”

“Ssshrr ... rawrr!”

“You’re always complaining.”

“Rrrhhh!”

Luz tensed, then looked left, right, left, then flung herself between two big pipes. She squirmed in, wriggled, used every bit of her inner-otter energy to cram herself between pipe and wall and then peek around it. Be the otter, she thought. Be tube shaped. Pipe shaped. No humans here, just some innocent, otter-ish pipes.

The two figures who entered into the room were a short, stocky, rather pretty looking girl of about Luz’s age, with dusky brown skin, dreadlocks, and a muscular build. She was dressed in a red and white shirt that looked fairly military, and was holding a truncheon that sparked and hissed at the tip – a shockstick!

Oh no she’s really hot! Luz thought, blushing as she peeked around the pipes.

Next to the stocky girl was a tall, broad shouldered lizardman with bright green scales, piercing slitted eyes, and a long thick tail, with the slightest of adornment in the form of long, feather-like scales giving him quasi-hair and arm tufts. He wore a sleeveless version of the same shirt that the girl was wearing, with a collar that showed off his huge abs.

Oh no he’s really hot! Luz thought as she crammed herself deeper into the wall.

“C’mon, lets start scanning,” the girl said.

The lizardman hissed in annoyance.

“Yeah, I know, Rogellio, but the faster we get this ... done...” the girl had pulled out a small handheld device and was aiming it at where Luz was hiding. “Who are you!?”

“Just a pipe technician, doing some pipe things!” Luz said, waving one arm at them. “Can’t believe how many, uh, pipes, I gotta ... gotta ... lay. I mean fix! I mean-”

The girl jabbed the shockstick against the pipe.

It turned out the metal was very conductive.

Luz groaned as she came too, strapped to a metal chair in a room full of angular edges and ominous, glowing wires, cables, and tubes. The centerpiece of the room was a gigantic, dark red crystal that hovered a few feet off the ground and positively throbbed with magical energies. Luz had actually been getting pretty good at feeling magic on her skin – it came with a tiny wash of tinglingness every time she cast a spell or, Amity cast a spell, or when Amity was near her, or when she kissed Amity or...

Luz groaned quietly. Thinking about Amity was not helping and hard to stop. She looked down at her restraints, then yelped as a voice spoke from behind her.

“Ah, finally. You’re awake.”

Luz craned her head around and saw the figure hovering around to come between her and the gemstone.

They were a woman – tall, elegant, and clad in a sweeping red robe. Their face was concealed by a red mask, which darkened to black around glowing white eyeholes. A red gemstone was set on her forehead, while her hair was a brilliant black waterfall that bloomed around her head and swept past her shoulders, looking more like shadows than real hair. Her fingers were gray and peeked out from fingerless red gloves. She had them pressed together, and her voice was a dangerous purr.

“You’re not as young as the last First One that fell through a portal,” she said.

Oh no! Luz thought. She’s also hot.

On the Boiling Isles, evil had thankfully managed to avoid the stereotype of being hotter than good. Eda was good, and she was foxy as hell. Kikimora ... was more cute than hot. Hunter? Well, okay, Hunter was hot, but he was also very sad, which helped balance out his evil, and then he chucked the evil, so, he was classic good guy turned bad, turned good. Darius? Darius was a good guy, hot too. But Belos had never really been that hot, and he was evil as heck. It was a nice swerve from all the books and anime and fan-fiction she had read.

Well.

It seemed that she had traded one whimsical land of nightmarish terror for another, and this one was playing by new rules.

Bad guys could be hot.

Luz frowned at the girl as she said. “I’m not a First One, uh, ma’am. I’m Luz! Luz Noceda, the human.”

“Hmm,” the woman said, narrowing those white-on-white eyes. Her fingers lifted and red energies crackled around her fingers. A spark of pain shot through Luz’s body, starting from her head and working her way down to her toes. She clenched her jaw, hard, and trembled as the energies finished buzzing through her.

“Ow!” Luz said. “Ow. Frick! That hurt! Hey!” She glared at the woman, who cocked her head.

“Human,” she said. “And yet, my spell says you’re not from Etheria.”

“Neat name!” Luz said, panting, softly. “Now, uhh ... can you please, let me go? Since I am not a First One and- and, uh, uh, what are you doing?” she asked, as the woman floated around behind her.

“Oh, I’m just going to probe your memories,” the woman said, her voice a dangerous croon as she leaned forward. “Because the only other human not from Etheria I’ve ever met ... well ... I have big plans for her. And I need to know if you’re a threat to them.”

“H-Hey, uh, uh, uh, uh, how about instead...” Luz said, looking around frantically. She started closed her eyes, trying to force down panic. “How about instead I just tell you everything you want to know! Youuuu got me, I’m a First One! Hah!”

The woman hesitated for a moment. “Hmm,” she said. “Do you know how to activate the machinery of Etheria?”

“Yes!” Luz said, immediately and without hesitation. “I absolutely do.”

The woman was still for a long moment, her finger touching the side of her head, cool and gentle. “And why should I not rip that knowledge from your mind?”

Luz started talking again, as fast as she could. “M-Memory magic is extremely dangerous. You might end up just ripping apart the very information you’re trying to get! I’ve seen it happen! Literally, my best friend’s memories got burned up and that was by mistake, now, imagine, if you’re doing it on actual purpose! Foosh! Memories gone, no worky the stuff, it’s all ... all kinds of bad.” She nodded. “So, uh, uh, you can just ... not ... not do that and I will show you how to activate the machinery of Etheria.”

“I see,” the woman said, then drew her fingertip away from Luz’s head. “But I will still need your compliance.” She walked around to stand before her – her fingers lifting, spreading. Luz tensed, readying herself for pain. Then her eyes widened as she saw a darkened figure was crouching in the tubes and rafters overhead. Luz’s eyes flicked up and the woman hesitated, then turned around.

“Who is- Catra.”

The figure leaped down and landed before Luz and the woman with a click of claws and bare feet. Luz took her in: Slender, tall, with rangy muscles and a wild mane of brown hair that looked like you could just bury your entire whole actual face directly into and just lose yourself in it for days. She had a bright red crest-helmet that framed her face – pretty, with intelligent eyes, one of which was gold, one of which was blue. She had orange-brown skin, and the faint tiger-stripe lines of a tabby cat on her arms. She also had cat ears and a cat tail.

Luz had had no chance against Rogellio. She somehow, she had had even less chance before Catra.

“Uh...” Luz whispered, her entire face going brilliantly red, while the tall woman glowered at the girl.

“What are you doing here, Catra?” she snarled.

“I’ve been sent to bring your prisoner to Lord Hordak. By Lord Hordak’s orders,” Catra said, her voice smug as she crossed her arms over her chest, looking up into her eyes. “Unless, Shadow Weaver, you want to tell me to tell him you won’t let him take a look at his new prisoner.”

Shadow Weaver – what a perfect name for evil, Luz thought – let out a quiet snarl. “I ... see...” she breathed in, then gestured. The restraints clicked open and Luz was able to stand, rubbing her wrists. “I am glad to see that you’ve finally learned some responsibility. A shame that you had to drive away Adora to get it.”

Catra’s entire body tensed. She clenched her hands, then turned and jerked her hand. “Come on, prisoner.”

Luz followed after her, looking back at Shadow Weaver as they walked through the door.

It slammed shut, cutting the two off from the dark room and the hovering, ominously glowing crystal.

Luz thought wildly to herself. We never once discussed what counts and does not count in our polyamory discussions when it comes to being blasted into alternate universes. We covered what if Willow was bi. We covered what if Eda got deaged. We covered what if Boscha challenged us to grudgeby and it got weirdly erotic in the locker room after we won and cornered Boscha in the showers! But we never once covered alternate universes. What kind of short sighted fools were we?

While she thought, Catra stalked ahead of her, clearly irritated to be put on this job. And where were they stalking?

Well, Luz tore her gaze from Catra to the surrounding place she was in. Everything was sleek gray metals, complex machinery, jagged edges. Then they came to a window and she gasped, stepping over and mashing her face against it, her palms spreading as she peered out at the vast, polluted city that the tower they were in looked out over. The spires and towers were nearly organic in their confused profusion of pipes, wires, connecting components – grown, piece by piece, but not by flesh and bone and muscle ... no, they had been grown by the factories that were belching smoke into the air nearly everywhere. Drones and robots both legged and winged hissed from place to place, and dozens of soldiers in face-concealing armor marched by on the promenade below, with tanks rumbling beside them.

“This is Etheria, huh?” Luz whispered.

“No, this is the Fright Zone,” Catra said, slouching over to her and then leaning with her back against the glass, her hands in her pockets. “It’s the boring part of Etheria.”

“This is the boring part!?” Luz boggled, turning her face to Catra. “What’s the rest like? Lasers everywhere?”

“No, the rest of Etheria is the princess part, full of dumb ... stupid princesses and their stupid rebellion,” Catra said, her voice bitter. “All sparkles, nothing underneath.”

Luz blinked. Rebellion. Fright Zone. Evil. Good! She frowned, considering her options. On the one hand, immediately running off to the rebellion (made of princesses, too?) seemed like the extremely obvious thing to do. Of course, this cat-girl ... this Catra ... was a soldier for the bad guys. She’d just try and capture Luz. And Luz had seen her obvious grace and athleticism.

Luz had once had tiny noodle arms. She had worked very hard to get ready for both grudgeby and flier derby and the Gland Prix – and the result had sculpted her into one fine mama jama, if she had to go off the way Amity’s entire face burst into literal incandescent fire whenever Luz took off her shirt. But she was no Catra. Now, if she had her magic...

“So, you’re Catra, right?” Luz asked.

“Noooo, my name’s Elizabeth Meow Meow Applesauce,” Catra said, rolling her eyes expressively.

“Right, stupid question,” Luz said, stepping away form the window, moving to her side. “I’m Luz. Luz Noceda. And I happen to be an expert on both princesses, rebellions, alliances, and fights against the above.”

Catra frowned, turning to face her. “You?” she asked.

“It’s true!” Luz said. “I’ve fought an evil shapeshifting monster. I once took down a gang of child murdering demon hunters. I regularly beat up Coven Guards, and those guys? Those guys are...” pretty similar to the masked troops that are on your side. “... no joke!” She grinned. “Maybe instead of a prisoner, I can be your plucky sidekick!”

“Plucky?” Catra asked, arching an eyebrow.

It’s not fibbing if you’re doing it to evil, Luz thought.

Catra cocked her head to the side, then snorted. “We’ll see if you’re still alive. After Hordak gets done with you.”

She started down the corridor again.

Luz gulped.

One step at a time, Noceda, she thought. One step at a time. Then you’ll get back home, and you’ll get to Amity, and you’ll fix everything up there.

Her eyes dropped to Catra’s tail. Then jerked back up again as they came to a large doorway that was sealed shut – and started to slowly grind open, gears working on gears to pull it open and reveal a massive, darkened chamber. Lights flickered to life and shone up to reveal a set of stairs leading to a tall throne. Sitting upon it ... was Lord Hordak. A red cloak spilled over muscular shoulders, while a skintight suit clung to a narrow, almost skeletal chest that narrowed down to a waspish waist. His face was pale white and gray, and made of angles and hard lines, with brilliant red eyes and two long, pointed ears. He looked like a vampire lord, waiting impatiently for his minions to come before him, and his sharpened fingers clacked loudly as he drummed them on the arm rest.